US woman who killed husband 2 decades ago admits to murdering second spouse

LOS ANGELES - A woman in California admitted on Aug 5 that she had stabbed her wife to death in 2025. More than two decades ago, she also served time in prison after stabbing another spouse to death.

Yolanda Olejniczak Marodi, 54, pleaded guilty in San Diego County Superior Court to second-degree murder in the death of her wife, Rebecca Marodi, 49. Marodi had worked for 30 years for Cal Fire, California’s wildfire fighting agency.

“Her legacy of mentorship, service and dedication will be felt for years to come,” Cal Fire said in a news release after Rebecca Marodi was found dead.

The couple had argued on the evening of Feb 17, 2025, before Olejniczak Marodi assaulted her wife, according to the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office.

Lorena Marodi, the mother of Rebecca Marodi, found her daughter with multiple stab wounds at their home in Ramona, California. Sheriff’s deputies were called, but her daughter died at the scene, authorities said in a news release.

Olejniczak Marodi fled to Mexico but was arrested in March 2025 at a hotel, according to authorities. She was released to the US Marshals and taken into custody at the United States border, authorities said.

A lawyer representing Olejniczak Marodi did not immediately respond to a request for comment. She is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept 2 and faces 36 years to life in prison, according to a spokesperson for the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office.

Two decades ago, Olejniczak Marodi was convicted in the death of her then husband, a spokesperson with the San Bernardino District Attorney’s Office wrote in an email.

According to court records, she pleaded guilty in 2003 to voluntary manslaughter in the death of James Joseph Olejniczak. Olejniczak, 26, was found in Fontana, California, stabbed to death in October 2000 by his room-mate, according to coverage at the time from The North County Times newspaper.

Olejniczak Marodi, who had one child with Olejniczak and who was 28 years old at the time, had pulled her nine-year-old son and four-year-old daughter from school and disappeared, the newspaper reported.

Her grandfather filed a missing person’s report. She eventually dropped off her children with a relative and turned herself in to authorities.

She was sentenced in 2004 to 11 years in prison, according to court records.

• This article originally appeared in The New York Times.